Gassy in the Greenhouse

One intricacy of livestock production that has people worried is how livestock produce greenhouse gases that could be impacting our environment. This is a very legitimate concern, as the world's production of these gases increasing daily. However, agriculture as a whole, not just livestock production, only accounts for 9% of the total greenhouse emissions, a mere one-third of what the transportation industry produces. But still, there's always room for improvement! Researchers are always working to find the best combination of supplemental minerals and feed combinations that will lower the amount of methane produced by livestock. And we are getting pretty good at it! One way we are currently reducing emissions is the fact that we now can produce far more product with a far smaller animal population than we could throughout the 20th century, thanks to feeding techniques and breeding strategies that help us get more product from each animal. Compared to 1960, today's egg producers can feed 72% more people with 32% less water and emitting 71% less greenhouse gases! (more on that here.)  Natural sources of methane like wetlands, oceans, and termites actually account for double the methane production than livestock! Livestock producers work on pasture management, feeding practices, manure handling techniques, and methane recapturing to manage the methane production of their animals. While we should be concerned about how much gases we produce in every arena, there are segments of industry like electricity and transport that we should be far more concerned with than livestock.